Napoleonic HITS Game March 28-29

Can someone please translate what time the game is today in PST?  Is it 11:30 or 12:30?

Pacific Standard Time is 8 hours behind British Summer Time, so 19:30 BST is 11:30 PST.

Regarding yesterdays game it was a blast as usual and very intense. The French had a simple plan - they had 3 divisions on the east side of the map and they would all go west(ish) more or less together. Kevin took Claparede's division in the south (4 infantry brigades and 2 batteries) and was to swing south of the woods that are south of Remotinos using the river bank to protect his left flank. I commanded Ludwig's division of 3 inf brigades, a big 8-squadron cuirassier brigade and 2 batteries. I was to go directly west and attack through the gap in the two woods and directly along the axis of the Camino Tudela. SDJI and EJ took Morand's division which was the smallest and had 3 brigades, a smaller 4-squadron brigade of German cavalry (dragoons?) and 1 battery.

The Austrians surprised me by defending very far forwards where a N-S ridge runs west of the Estrada Canales. We had a long hard fight here that turned when I committed a fresh brigade on my left to capture an Austrian battery that was causing all kinds of problems in my centre. The Austrians committed their grenadier brigade reserve and the fight swirled around the broken battery for about 15 minutes until I finally forced them off the ridge with the help of EJ whose brigade was attacking on my right.

There was then a long lull while the Austrians disengaged and we followed up. Matt, our commander, unfortunately dropped at about this point so we three division commanders kept the plan rolling with me in the centre, SDJI and EJ on my right using the river to protect their right flank and Kevin on the left. As the loop of the river towards the Austrian bridge narrowed so our troops became concentrated. After a final bombardment of the Austrian position I saw SDJI and EJ attacking from the north so wrote a hasty letter to Kevin telling him to attack as well since I had to so that Morand's division wasn't unsupported.

We had another longish and very bitter firefight on the slopes of the final ridge before I decided to bring up my cuirassiers and unleash them. I also un-TC'd my 3 brigade commanders and gave them attack orders and let them get on with it.

The game ended with the Austrian remnants squashed up against the edge of the map and conceding a win to the French.

It was a good fight that went on long and hard and it was nice to play on a section of the Antietam map I've never fought over before. New ground is always refreshing. Thanks again to Kevin for organising the scenario.

Arizona is one of the few places in the U.S. that does not adjust to Daylight Saving Time. Most of the state remains on Mountain Standard Time through the summer months, which is the same as Pacific Daylight Time. So today's battle for Matt begins at 11:30.

To avoid confusion (which runs against interest as lawyers make their living on confusion), it's perhaps easiest just to check your location on this site:
http://greenwichmeantime.com/

To avoid confusion, battles should just be listed in both UK time and US EST.   For me, as i not only live in Arizona which is a bit whacky but also am in China half the time, i do all math for time based on US EST.   GMT means pretty much next to nothing to me because i don't use it to calculate time differences and have enough calculations to do already!

Perhaps EST could be added, but it would add untold confusion to omit the current time in major U.S. time zones e.g. EDT, PDT

I will be of limited use tonight - being CinC that won't make a whole lot of difference - game-wise - but I was unable to resolve my mouse issues - it appears that the attached cable loses contact quite regularly by now, probably tore it out up to a point - thus making the mouse unreliable and rather useless.. - playing on a desktop PC I have no mousepad either...

it works every once in a while - but then it doesn't again - so like I said - limited options here...

shops are closed on Sundays in Austria thus I have to wait for tomorrow to get it fixed!

I'm not sure what the correct abbreviations are, i just mean list the battles both in US east coast time and UK time.   These battle postings in only UK time when half or more of the players in the USA is confusing.

Roland, use a magazine as a mouse pad.   Worked for me for years until i broke down and finally got a good gaming one.

thanks Matt, but I think I was unclear with my statement:

the mouse is the actual problem - I do have a mousepad (used the wrong word) - but not the thing laptops have as a 2nd mouse (where you use your finger to move the mouse on the screen)
I prefer a mouse with a cable, cause I used to always run out of battery in the middle of the most important fights and such - but the cable makes the mouse vulnerable as well....

oh well...

Your an officer, surely you can find one to borrow.

jeez - it took me 10 minutes just to get back into this thread - unplugging, replugging - pulling the cable - moving it...

anyway - the point is: I culled the entire appartment - just like last night - found one mouse - (not a live one ) but that one doesn't work either I am afraid ....

so dunno... I can try and join TS - but like I said - in-game I won't be able to do much... probably best if I relinquish command for tonight and come back tomorrow with equipment that works (I'll be sure to get an NBC mouse - just in case of an attack from Russia... )

really annoying how little one can do on a PC without a BLOODY MOUSE THAT WORKS!°!!!!!

(while I am typing here the bloody thing went offline again - so unsure if I can actually post this in the first place...

Tonight's game was the dictionary definition of a bloodbath. I saw these boys coming and when they arrived my division lasted about 10 minutes.

And there was another brigade to their right. 11,000+ drunken Russians.

Another fantastic picture, Diggers. Thank you.

Also, thanks again to Kevin and modders from the KS group who have put together such a fine piece of work.

Mike

I do hope that the historical immersion kicked in for Digby and he fealt what it was like to use his division to a bunch of peasants and cossacks...
a disgrace for the Empire! - almost glad I wasn't there

is the replay available somewhere?

PS: got the same mouse twice today - so I should be set for the future!

Unfortunately this was one of those situations that SoW is not designed to handle - a mass attack into melee by a large force. Historically this would probably have been suicidal as many such examples from battles of the time make clear - D'Erlon at Waterloo being one of the best known. I'm not blaming Mark at all - he did what was best with the troops he had, and his easy win and my rapid and comprehensive defeat were deserved because of extenuating circumstances; I made a few errors in not having my guns supported closely enough by an in-position infantry line and there was a huge gap between my division and Pepe's which was easily a half-mile to the south so I was unsupported so a negative reaction to the overall result isn't justified but I do take exception that the game engine has such a glaring weakness. A Napoleonic battle often used a long prep period of artillery fire to weaken the morale of the defenders before such a huge attack could safely be launched.

We have had many and long discussions about what to do on this subject and after playing the game for many years there still seems to be no answer unless we agree gentleman's rules that only single battalions can be launched into melee at a time, or at most several, maybe a brigade.

I doubt anyone has any fresh input to this debate, but I wanted to again air my dissatisfaction with the game engine. I only hope Waterloo:SoW fixes it once and for all.

oh - I always hate seeing a game engine being exploited... with me focusing on anything but realism those issues will always be there - simply because there are VERY few players who want to deal with the real thing and lots more that would rather just play a game...

as we discussed earlier this week: I doubt that the melees will be taken out of the game...

I am not asking that melees be taken out, I am hoping that defensive firepower at short ranges be increased and the morale effect of walking into a defenders fire without stopping to return fire would be a big/bigger morale impact. Given that SoW:WL sounds like it will be much more moddable with many more files opened up and new file interactions designed in, I am confident we can bring about satisfactory changes.

Now if we can just use the SoW:GB sprites and maps with the new game, we'll be fine until those skilled sprite artists upgrade the Nap sprite sets.

as per usual there are lot of "ifs"...

one can deduct from the few screenshots there are, that one can actually defend buildings/strong points now - like I said before: pretty much the only time where melee in its purest form would have taken place in real life...

again: increasing defensive fire is the wrong way to go: in the Napoleonics the offensive line usually broke the defensive line - THUS - the defensive line fell back, rallied, reformed and then turned into the offensive line which would most likely push back the now defender - unless he had reserves up... (only exception to this being the British later in the war)
which is why battles were usally lost when the last reserve was committed and done for....

this fact changed during the civil war - simply because musket range was increased and thus the defensive line had more time to actually have at the attacker!


what actually has to be done is to make the defenders break before melee happens, if the morale is affected enough (how to model the effect of huge French column coming down on a few Russian defenders is a mystery game-wise to me).... which would bring a proper artillery preparation back into play...

then the rally options for the SOW engine have to be changed and it has to be possible to rally a bataillon a lot more times than it is now! (and they should also break more quickly than now)
which would enable them to do the counterattack in the first place..




I know I have not played as many battles in this game with this mod as some of you have, but one thing is clear:

the attack/counter attack thing DOES NOT happen.... all that happens is that one sides hold on to the ground - and the other attacks - and one side breaks... then it's over for all those units committed... period...

it was a lot more fluent back then.....

Battalions do retreat, reform and advance several times before routing off the field. It's just that they do so as individual battalions and not as part of a coherent brigade. For ACW that's not a bad representation of what happened. That war was more about firefights than attack columns advancing to break a line. The result is our nappy infantry does not really behave as it should.

I'm optimistic that this will change in the new game. After all it was a defining characteristic of even the Waterloo battle. If NSD wasn't making significant changes to the game engine other than to include square formations, we'd have had the new version months ago. I am not so sanguine about a reduction in the number of melees though. I'm sure there will be many more than is historically appropriate.

I am not so sanguine about a reduction in the number of melees though. I'm sure there will be many more than is historically appropriate.

I have confidence that by the new engine allowing us to dig deeper into its guts, we can fix more anachronisms like this though. Hopefully we can have defenders break before attackers arrive, or attackers falter and fall back or try to deploy into a firing line in the face of a strong defence.

Presumably the presence of a square formation will do away with the compulsory melee animation. Everyone on the NSD team must have at least seen the Rod Steiger/Christopher Plummer Waterloo movie where even Hollywood bows to the logic that there isn't any significant melee between cavalry and squares. A square is hard for cavalry to crack because it doesn't move and break its formation! I live in hope.

What you experienced yesterday was a huge problem in our GCM games for a long time.   A big division would run up against a little division and just run it over with stacked up melees which would break the defender quickly.    If you think it's bad in Napoleonics with 100 yard muskets it's even worse in Civil War when you consider rifled muskets and the lack of damage they cause to the closing attacker in the game.    How this problem was finally addressed was two things:

1. Melees were made to take a VERY long time. 
2. Fatigue for melee'ing units was increased tremendously.

The result now is that while you can still stack up a few regiments against a single defender and defeat the one unit, the two units you used to do this are now totally exhausted and extremely vulnerable to getting shot up or destroyed themselves.    Charging a whole division is now something that isn't done very often and when you do, even if you win, your division is pretty much useless for the next 20 minutes until it rests and recovers.  And if you are counterattacked during this rest period, you're helpless.   

This change has seen the massive "column" charge that you experienced yesterday pretty much disappear in our games.   Sometimes there is the single regiment or slow build up charge and in certain situations, such as two divisions taking on a single isolated division, it still occurs.  But even then it occurs differently - the attacker now puts a single regiment on to each defending regiment and tires them out and then shoots the hell out of them with their remaining fresh regiments.   One other thing that may be GCM specific which facilitates this is that as a regiment's fatigue increases, it's firepower effectiveness drops dramatically to the point where an exhuasted regiment doesn't really cause any casualties by shooting.   They have to rest to become effective again.   This drop is a percentage drop i think based on state of fatigue.   You really start to notice it at "Tired".

Anyway, the problem of divisions being run over in melee was a huge problem and the problem has been solved by creative modding.   The result of the changes are that what happened to you yesterday no longer happens or if it does, Soldier's division would pretty much have been worn out and unable to stop the later attack on the Russian left.   It plays more realistically.

The GCM solution of using fatigue to prevent mass charges is not a bad idea for ACW battles. Regiments advanced in line rather than assault columns, so keeping the advance orderly would be difficult. But assault columns were the prevalent method of deciding a nappy battle. They were used to get the troops to the enemy as quickly as possible in order to minimize casualties. They were also much easier to keep organized. In that respect, Mark was the only napoleonic general on the field Sunday. The rest of us fought the usual line fight of the Seven Years War.

The question Martin brought up is a good one. Would a column assault succeed against fresh line line troops that had not been bombarded by artillery first. Unfortunately we can't recreate volley fire. We can't even improve short range fire without also increasing it at longer ranges. The result is that assault columns will usually get to the enemy line with minimal casualties where we have the non-historic melee.

We could increased the effectiveness of the artillery. It's killing power is based on the density of the target. Right now the average gun will miss fairly often when firing at an assault column. Or we could use historic numbers of batteries. Right now we field 50% or less of what would have been on the field. The justification I use for keeping it underrepresented in the scenarios is that it fires non-stop and fires when friendly troops are close to the enemy. More non-realism. We just don't have a good solution for the problem.

Actually, from everything I've studied, your assessment of Napoleonic warfare the assault column isn't exactly correct.  Typically the French would use the assault column to advance to the enemy and then deploy to line to firefight.   Actual contact was rare and in the even that the column was advancing to contact, typically if the defender fired a volley at the advancing attack and the attacker kept on coming, the defender would fall back.   Actual contact was rare.  It is not in our games.  Further, the GCM solution doesn't stop mass charging and wouldn't stop it in this game, it just makes it more of a risk and even with success you need time to reorganize.   But it still occurs and often does wipe out an enemy division...but you really need a big numerical advantage and you must be very wary of being counterattacked, the latter of which is the big risk.  

If we look at melees in our games as a mix of this advance to line and then charge and view it as an abstraction of this process, that's fine.  The real issue is that the game doesn't handle it correctly.    The way it plays out in KS Hits and the way it used to play out in GCM is that the attacker stacks two (or more) regiments against a single defender, breaks them in about 10 seconds or less, then uses those SAME two (or more) regiments to melee the next enemy and breaks them in about 10 seconds.   That's the real issue - that the same attacking "stack" of units can repeatedly run over the enemy unit after unit with little to no consequence to itself and when finished, the attacking division is still very much combat ready.  This just isn't the case in reality for the most part, as in such a situation the attacker would become disorganized, need to redress it's lines, etc...    Not to mention that such coordination is of course just not possible in reality.   

I think the GCM solution is an elegant one in that you can still defeat a defender with a larger force, but there is now a cost to doing so which is that your division is rendered very much disorganized (i.e. fatigued) in the process and very much vulnerable to counterattack, which i think IS a very realistic result. 

One thing for sure is that making artillery more powerful is absolutely not the solution in my opinion.  It's already extremely effective and in the end, making it more powerful won't really help this specific example of a larger division running over a smaller division, rather it would probably stop any division from advancing at all.   Remember, our artillery already is deadly accurate, already fires through friendly troops, already keeps up constant fire for 3 hours, etc....   Artillery is fine.  The problem as i see it is that there is no penalty for putting your entire division into melee with an enemy division.   Your troops are typically just fine after and ready for more as was the case with Mark's division yesterday.

after reading your first paragraph - what have I been talking about in TS all the time, Matt? - exactly what I have said - several times in fact...(the Napoleonic part only of course...)

the one problem people seem to also overlook is spacing: in real life you cannot advance infantry, cavalry and guns at the same time - you cannot have cavalry charge at the same spot as infantry is charging at.... you cannot simply have 2 bataillons attack at the same spot - simply because you lose command and control and you will almost be unable to sort them out after the fight... this is why you commit one - watch what happens, and then commit the next...

if units would actually take up space and not just their flags - the game would be a whole lot different

PS: I forgot to mention: another reason why "l'ordre mixte" was so effective at first - because it both used superior firepower (with the central bataillon being in line) and superior ability to attack - with the two bataillons on the flank being in attack column - neither had to reform or redeploy and could just do both!